We’ve all seen the commercial of the woman lying on the kitchen floor crying out “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” but fall are no laughing matter. In adults 65 years of age and older, Falls are the leading cause of fatal and nonfatal injuries. One fall in five among older adults results in a serious injury; older people are less able to recover from the physical and emotional trauma of a fall. Minimize your chances of a dangerous fall by having regular exercise, eye and hearing exams and review medications for their ability to cause dizziness or drowsiness. Also conduct an evaluation of the fall risks inside and outside your home. For the complete article, follow our link to the New York Times.
Falls Can Kill You. Here’s How to Minimize the Risk.
By Jane E. Brody | New York Times
Every day, I scan the obituaries to see why or how people die. You might call it morbid fascination, but I attribute it to the combined influence of my age (77) and my profession (health reporting). Obituaries give me ideas for Personal Health columns like this one that might help others — and me — avoid a preventable ailment or accident and premature demise.
One of the most frequent causes of death listed for people my age, as well as some younger and many older folks, is “complications from a fall,” the explanation given for the death last month at 93 of Russell Baker, the much-loved Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist and columnist for The New York Times.
Falls are the leading cause of fatal and nonfatal injuries among older adults. Every 19 minutes in this country, an older person dies from a fall.
To be sure, nearly everyone falls now and then, and some falls are unavoidable. But falling is not an inevitable consequence of aging. Most age-related falls are preventable once you know why they happen and take steps to minimize the risk for yourself, relatives and friends whose age or health status renders them especially vulnerable.
More than a quarter of individuals age 65 and older fall each year, and falling once doubles their chances of falling again, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A fall that may be run-of-the-mill for a young person (as in the lyric “Pick yourself up, brush yourself off and start all over again”) can be very dangerous for the elderly.
One fall in five among older adults results in a serious injury, and older people are less able to recover from the trauma physically and emotionally. Read More
